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Word Play

ACT ONE

(In darkness, unremitting party noise is heard. Piano music plays off-stage and on occasion, peals of too-loud laughter perforate the roar.)

(The lights reveal no set to speak of, just a well-dressed couple soon to know they’re ELEANOR and GEORGE. Each holding tight a champagne flute, they’re pressed together by the unseen crowd. They both are of that age – their thirties, early forties – when youth’s great and glowing promises have been corroded.)

ELEANOR

Stop. You’re such a flirt.

GEORGE

Not really, no. A flirt’s a shallow, rank self-serving flatterer. I simply complimented you.

ELEANOR

But with – what should I say? — suggestive emphasis.

GEORGE

More nonsense. I just spoke of what I see in front of me.

ELEANOR

You spoke quite graphically of what my dress reveals.

GEORGE

Of course. It’s why you wore it. I suppose you’d have me gawk at patterns in this Megerian carpet, or turn my ever-watchful eye to look at walls, when there you are — oh, covered, yes; but yes: revealing all that law and style and stunning taste allow.

ELEANOR

You’re doing it again. I haven’t worn a dress like this since, well, I can’t remember.

GEORGE

I believe you’re blushing.

ELEANOR

No, I do not blush.

GEORGE

I heard somewhere that blushing only shows on skin that is exposed. For instance, if you blush when you’re buck-naked, so much blood would be called forth to reach each lovely inch of your amazing flesh, you might just have a heart attack.

ELEANOR

You must stop saying things like that.

GEORGE

The reason being?

ELEANOR

You’ll be overheard and thought to be, well, hitting on me.

GEORGE

I accept the guilt, objecting only to the verb. ‘To hit on’? Such a metaphor suggests a silent violence, when what I’m doing — with the help of thrilling syntax more appropriate to you — is using a technique, a skill, an art that used to be imperative to anyone who’s civilized called: ‘charm.’ It doesn’t possibly include the grunted bludgeoning: ‘ I’m hitting on you.’ That’s a belching troglodyte’s inept and drooling mouth-wad!

ELEANOR

What a furious denunciation.

GEORGE

Fury is required in these days of instant concupiscent climax, when the barest glance fulfills all need of foreplay, and a kiss is only killing time before a hurried coitus. I still try to…

ELEANOR

That’s enough. I must get back…

GEORGE

To what? Or whom? We’re here amidst this getting-nicely-looped, quite noisy drawing room, with all these hundred roused escapees from who knows what grim entitled lives. Oblivious to the conflagrations of the world, we gossip with our glib and waggish wit about our nation’s failing progress, stuck in the paralysis of petty politics, our culture fidgeting with each new vile vulgarity, our sad societal sclerosis slowing us in preparation for our amber preservation with the insects.

ELEANOR

‘Our amber preservation’?

GEORGE

Do you disagree?

ELEANOR

I wouldn’t dare, but don’t you need a soapbox, or a pulpit, just so everyone can hear your homily?

GEORGE

No need, with you the only congregation that I want.

ELEANOR

Forgive me, I forgot your name.

GEORGE

We hadn’t gone that far.

ELEANOR

Oh well, perhaps this is the perfect time to say how nice it was to meet you and be gone.

GEORGE

Perhaps it’s not. My name is George. Is that enough, or must we open up the family names or where we’re from and desperately search for schools, relations, occupations? God! Will we descend into the pit of spoken hopelessness to ask, ‘What do you DO,’ and then sink further into quicksand querying about our real estate? Look, if we decided things without the tedious excavation of the context of our lives, and made our choices based on nothing more than words and instinct, we could be away from here quite soon.

ELEANOR

You talk so well — but at such length.

GEORGE

And I’ll agree. What is your name?

ELEANOR

I wonder if you ever stop. It’s Eleanor.

GEORGE

I stop when I am gagged, unconscious for whatever reason, or if something very pleasant interrupts to fill my mouth with sensuality.

ELEANOR

Like ice cream.

GEORGE

Yes. That worked when I was ten.

ELEANOR

So long ago.

GEORGE

It is a measure of eternity between my last banana split and meeting you tonight.